Motorola Droid Bionic Review - Dual Core with 4G LTE
by Brian Klug on October 11, 2011 1:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- LTE
- Motorola
- OMAP 4
- Mobile
- motorola droid bionic
Conclusion & Final Thoughts
The Bionic is the first smartphone we’ve seen to date that combines 4G LTE connectivity with a dual core SoC, ending a surprisingly long period where those two were mutually exclusive. The result is what’s currently the best cross section of features on paper, and a shockingly speedy experience.
The Bionic’s stock battery life isn’t far behind the other LTE smartphones, but it’s also not any better than them. That kind of performance is very indicative of where we should expect things to sit until 28nm LTE basebands and SoCs start arriving on the scene in 2012. If you don’t have access to a microUSB charger for at least a few hours during the day, the standard battery might be too much of a stretch. If you’re in that situation, the extended battery is an absolute necessity.
Though this Bionic isn’t the phone we were shown at CES, the result of being kicked back to the drawing board is overall pretty positive. The problem is that the incurred delay puts the Bionic right up against another phone with a dual core OMAP 4460, LTE, and a new build of Android. It would be a disservice to readers to not at least make mention of the Nexus Prime somewhere in this review, but my thoughts are still to wait and see what that device has to offer. I wouldn’t expect battery life to differ all that much however, given the same combination of features.
I sound like a broken record, but the Bionic really is a combination of the Droid 3’s software load and SoC, the Droid X2’s display and form factor, and a Motorola 4G LTE baseband. It’s a combination that finally breaks the mutual exclusivity that dual core and 4G LTE have had since Verizon’s 4G LTE launch. The Bionic that we saw and played with at CES never really saw the light of day, and yet I feel like this “Targa” turned Bionic does the promise of being the first dual core smartphone with 4G LTE justice. Even though the Nexus Prime is looming eerily on the horizon as of this writing, if there’s anything I’ve learned in the smartphone space, it’s that it is usually better to be first, than better, and you have to hand it to the Bionic for being first to dual core with LTE.
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jonup - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
It's actually leads to factual mistatement.On page 2 bellow the browsing battary life graph "2.236" should be "3.236".
Take care!
Brian Klug - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
Very good catch, fixed! Thanks!-Brian
Someguyperson - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
"There’s a grille to the side of this which serves no real purpose that I can tell other than decoration."- If I do recall, that's for the speakerphone.
"I went ahead and measured with a DMM just to make sure, though you can simply just look at the battery information page in ##4636## and see the same voltage at fully charged."
- You're thinking of *#*#4636#*#*
Someguyperson - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
Forget the speaker comment. You didn't mention the obviously placed speakerphone and I thought you were talking about that.I do believe you can lock a handset into a specific mode of operation through the *#*#4636#*#* operation if you want pure LTE testing though. It's under the "Phone information" menu at the bottom. In my experience, you can even try to lock the handset into modes it doesn't have.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
I'm actually referring to another menu in the case of the Bionic. Using the *#*#4636#*#* menu here doesn't work if the RIL isn't setup properly, as is what seems to be the case here. (EG the only options are the defaults, GSM/CDMA Auto (PRL) is selected by default, and there are no references to LTE at all).There's another menu inside ##PROGRAM (then enter SPC 000000), Test mode, keep going next page until you arrive at a page with many drop down options, select Network mode: "LTE only" like so:
http://imgur.com/a/C8noI
Unfortunately, if you do that, you lose 1x voice, so be careful.
-Brian
sotoa - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
Thanks for the review. I couldn't wait for the Bionic (due to delays), but I'm really happy with my Droid 3 and glad that these are very similar. No loss for me there!I'm bummed about the audio issues though. Music is just not loud weather using the headphones or the speaker. The original Droid was so much louder.
rscoot - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/4910/Bionic-About...This picture shows the number for the handset, you might want to edit that out!
Brian Klug - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
Well, at least for the demo phone that will be sent back, haha ;)Thanks for pointing that out though.
-Brian
Aikouka - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
One thing that's been on my mind in regard to LTE power draw is whether or not there's a parallel that can be made to CPUs. Similar to how they say a faster CPU that draws slightly more power will finish a task faster, is it possible to state that a LTE-equipped phone will finish loading web content significantly faster (not hard task compared to Verizon's EVDO), and it can return to a low-powered state? I know on my normal 3G (GSM) connection, if I'm watching a video on YouTube, it's going to be sitting there continuously loading for at least a minute, and the battery life definitely takes a hit for constantly accessing the modem.rrhartjr - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - link
You know.. I don't think I've ever seen anyone make this point.. and I think it's pretty prescient.The converse is that since it loads faster.. you'll just consume more, faster..
How many times have you given up waiting on something over EVDO and going to do something else. With LTE, the end of waiting!